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Passage 1

Agatha Christie's biography

Word Count: 291

Agatha Christie was born in Torquay, in the county of Devon, as the daughter of Frederick Alvah Miller, an American with a moderate private income, and Clarissa Miller. Her father died when she was a child. Christie was educated home, where her mother encouraged her to write from very early age. At sixteen she was sent to school in Paris where she studied singing and piano. Christie was an accomplished pianist but her stage fright and shyness prevented her from pursuing a career in music. In her books Christie seldom referred to music, although her detectives, Poirot and Miss Marple, show interest in opera and Poirot sings in THE A.B.C. MURDERS (1936) a World War I song. When Christie's mother took her to Cairo for a winter, she wrote there a novel. Encouraged by Eden Philpotts, neighbor and friend in Torquay, she devoted herself into writing and had short stories published.

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Passage 2

Charles Dickens biography

Word Count: 312

Charles Dickens was born in Landport, Hampshire, during the new industrial age, which gave birth to theories of Karl Marx. Dickens's father was a clerk in the navy pay office. He was well paid but often ended in financial troubles. In 1814 Dickens moved to London, and then to Chatham, where he received some education. The schoolmaster William Giles gave special attention to Dickens, who made rapid progress. In 1824, at the age of 12, Dickens was sent to work for some months at a blacking factory, Hungerford Market, London, while his father John was in Marshalea debtor's prison. "My father and mother were quite satisfied," Dickens later recalled bitterly. "They could hardly have been more so, if I had been twenty years of age, distinguished at a grammar-school, and going to Cambridge." Later this period found its way to the novel LITTLE DORRITT (1855-57). John Dickens paid his £40 debt with the money he inherited from his mother; she died at the age of seventy-nine when he was still in prison.

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Passage 3

Dictatorship

Word Count: 999

When Caesar returned to Rome, a triumph was held in his honor. The senate voted to place his triumphal chariot on the capital, opposite of Jupiter's, and that a bronze statue of him be put up on a monument representing the world with an inscription to the effect that he was a demigod. Four triumphs were celebrated (ostensibly over Gaul, Egypt, Pharnaces and Juba although actually over the Romans he had defeated). Part of the triumph involved Arsinoe IV, a former queen of Egypt, paraded around the streets in chains. This spectacle had never before been seen, at least not in Rome, and the people had pity on her. A fest was also held, and then Caesar was escorted home by twenty elephants carrying torch barriers. The following day, numerous spectacles were held. 400 lions were killed, and gladiators fought individually and in groups. In addition, a naval battle was staged on a flooded section of the Field of Mars. Finally, two armies of war captives (2,000 people, 200 horse and 20 elephants on either side) fought each other in the Circus Maximus to the death. The people were bothered, not so much by the sheer scale of the bloodshed as much as the waste of such a vast sum of money. Rioting resulted, which only stopped when Caesar had two rioters sacrificed by the priests on the Field of Mars.

When the triumph was over, Caesar set forth to passing an unprecedented legislative agenda. He ordered a census be taken, which forced a reduction in the grain dole. Then he mandated that jurors could only come from the senate or the equestrian ranks. Next he passed a sumptuary law which restricted the purchase of certain luxuries. After this, he passed a law that rewarded families for having many children, in an effort to speed along the repopulation of Italy. Then he passed a law which outlawed professional guilds, except those of ancient foundation, since many of these were subversive political clubs. He then passed a term limit law applicable to governors. Next he passed a debt restructuring law, which ultimately eliminated about a fourth of all debts owed. The Forum of Caesar, with its Temple of Venus Genetrix, was then built among many other public works. Caesar also tightly regulated the purchase of state-subsidised grain and reduced the number of recipients to a fixed number, all of whom were entered into a special register. From 47 to 44 BC he made plans for the distribution of land to about 15,000 of his veterans. The most important change, however, was his reform of the calendar. The calendar at the time was regulated by the movement of the moon, and this had resulted in a great deal of disorder. Caesar replaced this calendar with the Egyptian calendar, which was regulated by the sun. He set the length of the year to 365.25 days by adding an intercalary/leap day at the end of February every fourth year. To bring the calendar into alignment with the seasons, he decreed that three extra months be inserted into 46 BC (the ordinary intercalary month at the end of February, and two extra months after November). Thus, the Julian Calendar opened on January 1, 45 BC. This calendar is almost identical to the current Western calendar.

Shortly before his assassination, he passed a few more reforms. He established a police force, appointed officials to carry out his land reforms, and ordered the rebuilding of Carthage and Corinth. He also extended Latin rights throughout the Roman world, and then abolished the tax system and reverted to the earlier version which allowed cities to collect tribute however they wanted rather than needing Roman middlemen. His assassination prevented further and larger schemes. He wanted to build an unprecedented temple to Mars, a huge theater, and a library on the scale of the Library of Alexandria. He also wanted to convert Ostia to a major port, and cut a canal through the Isthmus of Corinth. Militarily, he wanted to conquer the Dacians, Parthians, and avenge the loss at Carrhae. Thus, he instituted a massive mobilization. Shortly before his assassination, the senate bestowed more honors on him. They named him censor for life, Father of the Fatherland, decreed that his image be stamped on coins (a symbol of monarchy), that his birthday be celebrated by public sacrifices, and that the month of Quintilis be renamed July in his honor. They even went further and decreed that he should sit in the senate on a gilded chair in the clothes that the kings had formally worn, according to HH Scullard reference From the Graccchi to Nero, third edition it is doubtful that he was addressed outright as "Jupiter Julius" and instituted a de facto cult around him with Mark Antony as its high priest. The senators may have done this to hasten his undoing, although he accepted most of these honors and became so prideful that he dispensed with his bodyguard.

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Passage 4

Egyptian expedition

Word Count: 1088

Person on a horse looks towards a giant statue of a head in the desert, with a blue sky.
Bonaparte Before the Sphinx, (ca. 1868) by Jean-Leon Gerome, Hearst Castle.
After two months of planning, Bonaparte decided France's naval power was not yet strong enough to confront the Royal Navy in the English Channel and proposed a military expedition to seize Egypt and thereby undermine Britain's access to its trade interests in India. Bonaparte wished to establish a French presence in the Middle East, with the ultimate dream of linking with a Muslim enemy of the British in India, Tipu Sultan. Napoleon assured the Directory that "as soon as he had conquered Egypt, he will establish relations with the Indian princes and, together with them, attack the English in their possessions." According to a February 1798 report by Talleyrand: "Having occupied and fortified Egypt, we shall send a force of 15,000 men from Suez to India, to join the forces of Tipu-Sahib and drive away the English." The Directory agreed in order to secure a trade route to India.

In May 1798, Bonaparte was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences. His Egyptian expedition included a group of 167 scientists: mathematicians, naturalists, chemists and geodesists among them; their discoveries included the Rosetta Stone, and their work was published in the Description de l'Egypte in 1809.

En route to Egypt, Bonaparte reached Malta on 9 June 1798, then controlled by the Knights Hospitaller. The two hundred Knights of French origin did not support the Grand Master, Prussian Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim, who had succeeded a Frenchman and made it clear they would not fight against their compatriots. Hompesch surrendered after token resistance, and Bonaparte captured a very important naval base with the loss of only three men.

Cavalry battlescene with pyramids in background

Battle of the Pyramids, François-Louis-Joseph Watteau, 1798–1799

General Bonaparte and his expedition eluded pursuit by the Royal Navy and on 1 July landed at Alexandria. He fought the Battle of Chobrakit against the Mamluks, an old power in the Middle East and this helped the French practice their defensive tactic for the Battle of the Pyramids fought on 21 July, about 24 km from the pyramids. General Bonaparte's forces of 25,000 roughly equalled those of the Mamluks' cavalry, but he formed hollow squares with supplies kept safely inside. 29 French and approximately 2,000 Egyptians were killed; the victory boosted the morale of the French army.

On 1 August, the British fleet under Horatio Nelson captured or destroyed all but two French vessels in the Battle of the Nile, and Bonaparte's goal of a strengthened French position in the Mediterranean was frustrated. His army had succeeded in a temporary increase of French power in Egypt, though it faced repeated uprisings. In early 1799, he moved an army into the Ottoman province of Damascus (Syria and Galilee). Bonaparte led these 13,000 French soldiers in the conquest of the coastal towns of Arish, Gaza and Jaffa, and Haifa. The attack on Jaffa was particularly brutal: Bonaparte, on discovering many of the defenders were former prisoners of war, ostensibly on parole, ordered the garrison and 1,400 prisoners to be executed by bayonet or drowning to save bullets. Men, women and children were robbed and murdered for three days.

With his army weakened by disease—mostly bubonic plague—and poor supplies, Bonaparte was unable to reduce the fortress of Acre and returned to Egypt in May. To speed up the retreat, he ordered plague-stricken men to be poisoned. (However, British eyewitness accounts later showed that most of the men were still alive and had not been poisoned.) His supporters have argued this was necessary given the continued harassment of stragglers by Ottoman forces, and indeed those left behind alive were tortured and beheaded by the Ottomans. Back in Egypt, on 25 July, Bonaparte defeated an Ottoman amphibious invasion at Abukir.

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Question: Agatha Christie was born in:

Denver
Torquay
Norway
Portsmouth

Question: Agatha Christie's father died when:

she was born
she got married
she was a child
she started college

Question: Who encouraged Agatha to write from very early age?

Her father
Her mother
Her aunt
Her teacher

Question: What prevented Agatha from pursuing a career in music?

Her preference for writing
Her father's death
Her preference for dancing
Her stage fright

Question: How many hours of reading do you do?

daily

Question: Dickens' father was a clerk in the:

army pay office
post office
navy pay office

Question: John Dickens' mother died when

he was in Cambridge
he was in prison
he was a clerk
Charles was born

Question: How many hours of reading do you do?

daily

Question: How many horses fought to death in the Circus Maximus?

2,000
200
20
15,000

Question: When did Julius Caesar make plans for the distribution of land to about 15,000 of his veterans?

From 47 to 44 BC
From 37 to 34 BC
From 47 to 44 BC
From 07 to 04 BC

Question: Shortly before his assassination, which of the following honors were bestowed on Caesar by the senate?

They named him censor for life
They named him Father of the Fatherland
They decreed that his image be stamped on coins
They decreed that his birthday be celebrated by public sacrifices

Question: How many hours of reading do you do?

daily

Question: To speed up the retreat, Bonaparte ordered plague-stricken men to be

poisoned
be-headed
imprisoned
abandoned

Question: Bonaparte fought the Battle of Chobrakit against

the British
Ottoman forces
the Mamluks
Prussian forces

Question: Bonaparte wished to establish a French presence in the Middle East with the ultimate dream of:

defeating Prussians
defeating the French
capturing Egypt
linking with Muslim enemy of the British

Question: How many hours of reading do you do?

daily

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